PRAKASH SINGH/AFP

Abdul Maruf at his residence in Jaipur on May 15, with a photograph of his daughter Irma who lost her life in one of the bomb explosions.

PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh’s first reaction to the Jaipur serial blasts was made one day after the incident, on the sidelines of a defence investiture ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

He admitted that the government was not in a position to say whether the investigating agencies were close to a breakthrough. “The government will explore all possibilities” but “it is premature to say anything right now as it may interfere with the investigations”, he added. The question of “breakthrough” or the lack of it made its presence felt in the following days too.

Two days after the explosions, the Union Cabinet was briefed on the investigations by National Security Advisor (NSA) M.K. Narayanan and Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrashekhar. After the meeting, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram iterated, “I don’t think we have reached a stage where we can claim that we have achieved a breakthrough.”

While the responses from the two senior Ministers could be perceived as demonstrations of prudence, Minister of State for Home Jaiprakash Jaiswal’s “initial assessment” of the blasts was marked by so cautious an approach that it bordered on the ridiculous. Addressing a press conference after visiting the blast sites, he held forth that the Jaipur blasts signified a “dangerous happening” carried out by a “dangerous terrorist outfit”. His observation on the explosives used was that “it could be ammonium nitrate, TNT [trinitrotoluene], RDX [cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, or Research Department Explosive] or even a dangerous mix, possibly the most dangerous that can be used by terror outfits for carrying out blasts”.

This exposition virtually covered almost all the serial blasts that had taken place over the past one year. In the Ajmer Sharif blasts as well as the Hyderabad blasts, it was a combination of RDX and TNT that was used. The combination device was set off with a cellular phone trigger. The explosives used in Malegaon in Maharashtra and the majority of those (not all) used in Varanasi were ammonium nitrate with RDX and these were mounted on cycles.

Emulating his senior colleagues, Jaiswal refrained from making a specific comment on the possible perpetrators of the blasts. All that he would say was that the use of cycles to plant bombs was reminiscent of blasts in Malegaon and Hyderabad. Jaiswal also addressed the issue of possible external links of the perpetrators of the blasts with the illuminating observation that “it could be Pakistan, Bangladesh or any other country”. He went on to add that “we complain to our neighbours from time to time about the linkages from there with the terror attacks here, evoking repeated assurances [from them] that they would take steps to prevent anti-India activity from their soil.” Jaiswal further said that one has to take into consideration the fact that the political situation in our neighbouring countries is not like that in India, where the police and other agencies function strictly within the stipulated systems of government.

GOPAL SUNGER

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia with the BJP’s senior leader Lal Krishna Advani at the site of a blast.

Even as the political leadership thus treads with obsessive circumspection, many theories and hypotheses about the blasts and its perpetrators emerged within different segments of the Indian security system.

The most dominant opinion, which was apparently part of the briefing given to the Union Cabinet by the NSA, highlighted the similarities that the Jaipur blasts had with the August 2007 blasts in Hyderabad and the possible involvement of the Bangladesh-based terrorist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI). The fact that the investigating agencies have called for a team from the Andhra Pradesh Police involved in probing the Hyderabad blasts gave an indication that this line of inquiry has much credence among senior officials in the country’s security system.

Another stream of reasoning within the security system, particularly in the intelligence network, was that the Jaipur blasts were the immediate fallout of the recent regrouping of jehadi elements in Pakistan under its new democratic government. This line holds that the regrouped jehadi elements are steadily rebuilding a strong bond with die-hard sections of the Pakistan Army and are actively coordinating with India-based terrorist groups. “This revival of an anti- India grouping is, apparently, marked by a confidence that the new government would not interfere and curtail its agenda of terror,” said a senior security official to Frontline.

Sections of the Indian intelligence network are of the view that the Jaipur blasts have to be seen in conjunction with the discussions the new government in Pakistan concluded with pro-Taliban elements in the North-West Frontier Province immediately after assuming office, the increased trans-national infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) in the days following that and recent instances of unprovoked firing (in military parlance, protective firing or cover provided by armed forces to facilitate insurgent activities) by Pakistani forces along the LoC.

According to a source, the broad projections within the security system about the specific operations in relation to the blasts is that a group of approximately 20 people were involved in the process of procuring explosives and materials and in the execution of the attack. It has also been inferred that the operation was planned about four months ago and systematically advanced over the past three months. The execution bit, according to a security official associated with investigating teams, was initiated about a week before the blasts when cycles, cloth to wrap the bombs and ball bearings were purchased by the perpetrators. It has also been commonly agreed that an attack on this scale could not have been carried out without local support.

On the question of local support, a widely held view among security agencies is that among Indian organisations, the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is most closely associated with HuJI. SIMI’s main leaders, including its chief, Safdar Nagori, were arrested in the last week of March in Indore in Madhya Pradesh. This should have naturally weakened SIMI’s potential in terms of carrying out operations.

In this context, there is also the question, among a section of specialists in the country’s security system, whether organisations other than HuJI and SIMI, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), are involved in the attack. But, again, there has been no real “breakthrough”.

PRAKASH SINGH/AFP

A woman member of the Rapid Action Force passes by Hawa Mahal, a Jaipur landmark, during the curfew in the old city area on May 15.

Indeed, some television channels received an e-mail from an outfit calling itself the “Indian Mujahideen” claiming responsibility for the blasts. The e-mail was sent nearly 24 hours after the blasts and cited the frame number of a bicycle that was planted at Choti Chaupad near Kotwali in Jaipur. The cited frame number did indeed match that of the cycle recovered by the Rajasthan Police from Choti Chaupad.

The e-mail was sent from the address guru_alhindi_jaipur@yahoo.co.uk and was reportedly dispatched from a cyber cafe in Sahibabad, a small town in Uttar Pradesh near Delhi. It exhorted the Indian government to stop supporting the United States in the international arena and warned that there would be more attacks at other important tourist places if India did not heed the warning. The e-mail had three video attachments shot by a mobile phone camera. One of these showed a brand new cycle and the other two a new cycle parked at a two-wheeler stand with its carrier having a blue bag purportedly holding a bomb.

The initial assessment among security agencies was that the e-mail was sent to mislead the investigation. However, a view that evolved later among sections of the security system was that the e-mail had to be seen with greater importance.

This view developed essentially on account of certain similarities that were detected between this e-mail and another one received by the media in November 2007, when blasts took place in the courts of Lucknow. The Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility for those blasts, too, through an e-mail sent from the address guru_alhindi_jaipur@yahoo.fr. The e-mail was sent minutes before the blasts and had contained some correct information regarding them.

In the context of detecting this connection between the two e-mails, a surmise doing the rounds in the intelligence network is that the Indian Mujahideen is a special action group formed through a selection of HuJI and SIMI members. An Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) officer who subscribed to this view agreed, however, that the agencies had not been able to gather tangible evidence in its support. But he pointed out that the November 2007 e-mail had also said that Indian Mujahideen had formed three wings – the Shahbuddin Gouri Brigade (for South India), the Mahmood Gaznavi Brigade (for North India) and the Shaheed Al-Zarqawi Brigade (suicide attackers) – to target various cities.

In concrete terms of investigation, scores of people, including a large number of Bangladeshi immigrants, have been rounded up by investigating agencies. The detentions have taken place in several parts of Rajasthan and other parts of the country including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. The first four days after the blasts also witnessed the release of four sketches of people who are suspected of carrying out the attack.

The Rajasthan government, on its part, set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by an Inspector General of Police. While announcing its formation, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia gave sufficient indications that the State government was not happy with the general approach of the Central government and its agencies in relation to the blasts. Though it has not been overtly stated, there is a sense among Central investigating agencies that the State SIT would carry out its own probe without much cooperation from the Central team.

Divergence of this nature among different security agencies is nothing new in investigations of terrorist attacks in India. It could well be treated as a tradition. Six years ago, the investigation into one of the most daring terrorist attacks, the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, faced a similar situation.

The investigation into it saw a fierce battle between the police forces of Gujarat and Jammu & Kashmir. The Jammu & Kashmir police claimed that its investigations had pointed towards the involvement of two fidayeen (suicide squad volunteers), while the Gujarat police held that five local Muslims, led by Ahmedabad cleric Mufti Abdul Qayoom, played a key role in planning the attack and protecting those who carried it out. Similar differences abound in the investigation into the 2005 Delhi blasts too, which killed 55 people. According to the Delhi police, the Delhi attack was executed by a LeT module but the Uttar Pradesh Police is convinced that the HuJI did it.

The Indian security agencies also have a record of not being able to conclude successfully the probes in a number of terrorist attacks. The 2006 Mumbai train blasts and the 2007 Samjhauta Express blasts near Panipat in Haryana are cases in point. While the HuJI-SIMI nexus has been blamed squarely for the Mumbai blasts, the Haryana Police are still in the dark about the perpetrators of the Samjauhta Express blasts.

The infamous case of the wrongful arrest of Aftab Alam Ansari, an electrician working for a power company in Kolkata, happened after the November 2007 blasts in Lucknow. The Uttar Pradesh Police arrested Ansari, holding him responsible for ferrying the entire cache of explosives for the blasts. And this was done on the claims of two arrested militants, Mohamad Khalid and Tariq Quazmi, without cross-checking or verifying the veracity of their statement. Given this track record, it should come as no surprise if the Jaipur investigations drag along for a long time without any tangible result.

But there is little doubt that theorising by security-intelligence experts and politicking by rival politicians will continue as the investigations tumble along. The context of the elections in Karnataka –which were on even as the Jaipur blasts took place – as well as the prospective electoral battles in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Delhi during the latter part of the year have imparted a special flavour to the politicking on the Jaipur blasts.

Immediately after the blasts, Vasundhara Raje Scindia said that her government had received no actionable intelligence inputs from the Centre of a possible terrorist attack. She went on to blame the Centre’s policies and inaction, especially the failure of intelligence mechanisms, for the Jaipur attack.

Manmohan Singh himself responded to this by stating that there were a number of cases that the intelligence agencies had anticipated and prevented, but each and every terror strike could not be anticipated considering the element of surprise that the terrorists employ.

On his part, Jaiswal said that State governments should evolve their own intelligence mechanisms instead of always looking to the Centre. In his view, though the government has been modernising the police and introducing hi-tech gadgets, all this is useless in the absence of good ground intelligence. Lal Krishna Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate, is convinced that it was the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) by the United Progressive Alliance government that created the climate favourable for attacks such as the one in Jaipur.

Thankfully, in the midst of all this political one-upmanship there is agreement on one thing. Both Advani and Jaiswal are vocal that the terror outfits had the objective of destroying the communal harmony in the country and that the people of the country have foiled that. •